My involvement with the American Library Association’s Video Round Table will be keeping me busy for the foreseeable future. As I mentioned last week, the program I helped put together as the chair of the Program Committee is coming up in a couple of weeks at ALA’s annual conference.

I also have volunteered to serve for another 2 years on the Notable Videos for Adults Committee and the films we will be reviewing are starting to come in. I really enjoyed being on the committee the past two years even though it’s a big time commitment. For the past two years, I have blogged about most of the movies I viewed (2009 and 2010). I debated whether or not I wanted to blog about the films again this year. My hesitation stems from the fact that I have never been able to keep up with posts for all the movies I watch. But looking back at the posts, I realize that they have been helpful to me at least when the time comes to deliberate about the films and help select a list. And just because I haven’t been able to keep up with the posts in the past doesn’t mean I won’t be able to this year, right?

And, finally, I have been elected as the incoming Vice Chair/Chair Elect for the Video Round Table with my tenure as Vice Chair beginning on July 1. I look forward to serving in this capacity as I have found my involvement with the Round Table these past few years very rewarding and really enjoy working with the other members.

I’ve recently become fascinated by the surge of interest in the concept of Transliteracy.  One of the things I find fascinating is that, for a new term, it’s not really all that new. In a way, it’s just a fancy new term for media literacy with a few different twists. The Center for Media Literacy defines media literacy as:

a 21st century approach to education. It provides a framework to access, analyze, evaluate and create messages in a variety of forms — from print to video to the Internet. Media literacy builds an understanding of the role of media in society as well as essential skills of inquiry and self-expression necessary for citizens of a democracy.

Similarly, the National Association for Media Literacy Education states:

Media literacy– the ability to ACCESS, ANALYZE, EVALUATE, and COMMUNICATE information in a variety of forms-is interdisciplinary by nature. Media literacy represents a necessary, inevitable, and realistic response to the complex, ever-changing electronic environment and communication cornucopia that surround us.

Although media literacy began as a reaction to the perceived negative influence of Mass Media during the middle of the 20th century, it has evolved to include and analysis and understanding of a variety of emerging media. In this way, media literacy is not much different than transliteracy, which The International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) defines as:

an umbrella term encompassing different literacies and multiple communication channels that require active participation with and across a range of platforms, and embracing both linear and non-linear messages.

Despite the fact that print is a communication medium, media literacy tends to focus on non-print or non-text print materials. Transliteracy attempts to be broader. IFLA, in its report “Transliteracy: take a walk on a wild side,” quotes Sue Thomas, who defines transliteracy as “what it means to be literate in the 21st Century,” that is, having a “unifying perspective” on the ability to “read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks.”

In this respect, media literacy can be considered a sub-topic of transliteracy. Regardless of how one chooses to use the terminology, the emerging field of transliteracy is building on the foundation set forth by media literacy.

Having a long-standing interest in media literacy in my work as a media librarian, the recent wave of interest in transliteracy fascinates me, and I hope to investigate and write more about it, especially as to how it relates to libraries.

Back in the summer, I saw Youth Knows No Pain at CineVegas. At the time, I hoped that it would be available on DVD in time to be eligible for the Notable Videos Committee. I thought it was a great film about body image and the length people will go to in order to live up to preconceived notions of beauty. One of the most engaging parts of the film is the way it balances a personal story with facts.

I bring this up in a review about Beauty Mark: Body Image & The Race for Perfection because it is a very similar film. Unfortunately, I did not find it as engaging as Youth Knows No Pain. I think if I had not seen Youth, I would have liked Beauty Mark more than I did because it is a very good documentary by Diane Israel who is a psychotherapist and athlete. Like Mitch McCabe’s Youth, Beauty Mark is a very personal film since both directors are also the main characters in each film.

Both filmmakers explore how their young lives affected their images of their adult selves. Israel focuses on growing up as a competitive athlete. McCabe’s father was a plastic surgeon. Whereas Israel keeps the focus on her own life, Youth Knows No Pain goes beyond the personal with a series of interviews with other people talking about their self-image.

The shorter educational version of Beauty Mark was nominated for the committee and I wonder if I would find the longer version more interesting.

Although I feel that Youth Knows No Pain is a better film, I do think Beauty Mark has plenty to recommend it. This would be a great film to show in a classroom to begin a conversation about body image.

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Consuming Kids, from the Media Education Foundation, is a fascinating study about how marketers target advertising at children. In it’s brisk 67 minutes, Consuming Kids, using archival footage, excellent current examples, and well-selected interviews, provides damning evidence regarding the negative effects advertising has on young children. It provides a brief history of some of the legislation, in the form of deregulation in the 1980s, that created the situation where advertisers have free reign to market to children of any age. It also presents interesting comparisons of advertising between the past and the present to show how the approach to advertising to children has changed. The film is very well-structured with each segment becoming more enlightening as it progresses into how marketers lower the age bar for marketing sexual imagery to children and how they use psychology and science to undermine parental authority.

Not only is Consuming Kids an excellent documetary specifically about marketing to children, it also presents a great overview of media literacy issues in general.

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Obscene is a documentary about Grove Press publisher Barney Rosset. Rosset was responsible for the first U.S. publications of controversial novels like Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Tropic of Cancer, Naked Lunch and the Autobiography of Malcolm X. The publication of the first three of these books led to important court cases which helped liberate literature from their previously censored status.

Being a fan of Tropic of Cancer and Naked Lunch, I was aware of Grove Press, Rosset, and the court cases surrounding these books. But I was not familiar with Rosset’s life or a lot of the other work that Grove Press published.

What makes Obscene a great film is that it not only provides an understandable overview of Rosset’s life and the importance of the works he published, but it also sheds light on the difficult issues surrounding censorship. The most fascinating part of the film traces the publications of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Tropic of Cancer, and Naked Lunch. With each successive book, claiming literary importance (one of the tests for censorship) became more difficult as the books veer further and further from contemporary standards.

Although it is easy to champion Rosset for publishing these now important books, he also guided Grove Press to publish much more questionable content. To it’s credit, Obscene does not shy away from the seedier side of Rosset’s work. The exploration of the later years of Rosset’s work with Grove Press raises a lot of questions about the nature of censorship and how far we are willing to go to defend free speech.

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Baghdad Twist combines photos, archival footage, home movies with an interview with the director’s, Joe Balass, mother. The result is a fascinating look at the Jewish Community in Iraq. The film is very personal but at the same time packs a lot of history into it’s brisk 30 minutes. The film focuses on his mother’s early life up until the time the family fled to Canada in the 1970s.

The interviews do not form a cohesive narrative but this is not a shortcoming. Given the brief running time, Baghdad Twist is not attempting to be an all-inclusive family history. It’s a string of memories brought together by well-chosen artifacts.

I watched Baghdad Twist the same week I watched Blood and Oil (also for the notables committee) and Persepolis which made for a rather interesting combination of views about life in the Middle East during the mid and later parts of the 20th Century.

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I am usually a big fan of anything the Media Education Foundation puts out, and their Blood and Oil certainly qualifies. Many of their videos focus on one expert, often based on a book that this person has written. This is the case with Blood and Oil which features Michael T. Klare and is based on his book Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America’s Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum. Part of me is a little put off by this method. I would like to hear other voices to help verify or confront the main speaker’s points. That said, Klare is an expert in the field with an impressive resume; however nothing about his background is presented in the film. Blood and Oil could have benefited from providing some information about Klare’s background. I found myself wondering why I should listen to this guy and felt compelled to look him up after the fact.

Blood and Oil opens with the question of whether the war in Iraq was motivated by the quest to secure their oil. It then traces the history of the United States relationship with the Middle East in terms of how its foreign policy was based on oil. It does so through Klare’s expert research and through well-chosen archival footage. Blood and Oil provides a fascinating look how World War II, when the U.S. went through 1/3 of its reserves, helped form FDR’s realization that the U.S. could not remain oil dependent forever, and how he met with the leader of Saudi Arabia to provide protect to the Saudi’s in return for the right to develop their oil. Blood and Oil traces how that arrangement has affected U.S. foreign policy ever since.

Despite my initial reservation about the lack of diverse speakers, I found Blood and Oil to be an interesting and necessary film to view.

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Blessed Is the Match tells the story of Hannah Senesh, a Hungarian Jew who moved to Palestine prior to World War II and became a resistance fighter. She joined a mission to rescue other Jews in Hungary, the only such military rescue attempted. This documentary uses archival footage, personal photos, letters and diary entries from a wide range of people involved, and interviews with survivors and talking heads but mainly relied on Hannah’s own poems and diary and writings of her mother. Blessed Is the Match is as much the story of her mother who witnessed much of Hannah’s ordeal as it is Hannah’s.

Given the number of World War II and Holocaust movies available, Blessed Is the Match is notable for it’s unique topic. The film is just shy of 90 minutes, and this tight running time enhances the excitement of the story. After a brief history of Hannah’s early life, Blessed Is the Match gains momentum at about the 20 minute mark and remains intense the rest of the way.

The film mixes in some dramatizations which, at times, are a little cloying, but that is a minor complaint in an otherwise fascinating documentary.

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I am on the 2010 Program Committee for ALA’s Video Round Table. We are basing the program around libraries who make their own movies and are looking for excellent examples of library produced videos. We are in the early stages of looking for examples and are, for now, casting a wide net, so it doesn’t matter if the movie is for promotion or instruction or fun.

If you know of any outstanding videos made by libraries, you can post a link in the comments or email me at thomasipri [at] gmail [dot] com.

Thanks!

As I have done the past two years, I have set-up a wiki for the National Media Market: http://nmm2009.wikispaces.com/

I am using Wikispaces for the first time. I decided to give it a try because it has an area for discussion boards, which the previous site did not.

If you purchase media for your library, I highly recommend NMM. It’s a great way to find out what new films are available, to meet and speak with the vendors, and to talk with colleagues. Because it is a small, specialized event, you really get to know people who have similar interests. Although I have attended only two markets in the past, I have already made some wonderful friends and valuable library contacts.

The Market also features a discussion group on the Sunday prior to the official start. The discussion this year will focus on fair use, DMCA and related issues.